Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations waross on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

FEA on linux 2

Status
Not open for further replies.

gyro

New member
Jun 21, 2002
18
AU
Hello
I am a an aeronautical engineer and I am thinking about trying to use a linux based fea program for composites. Is there many (any) fea programs that might be capable of this kind of thing I could get of the internet? I am thinking that it is likely that I will have to try and modify some to suit.

Gyro.
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

LS-DYNA is available in any Unix architecture, as well as for the Windows PC
email me if you would like to discuss
 
Hi all,
A true linux user, I hate paying for stuff, and commercial FEA packages are prohibitavely expensive for me at the moment.

There are a heap of free open source FEA packages around. I am wondering if you guys have tried any decent ones.

I have tried a few and they were all crap.

With the sheer volume out there I am sure there would be something good, I just need to find it.

Freak
 
Hello,

Do you know the 'code-Aster'. An EDF project under GPL Licence with a lot of solution for civil works, composite, thermal .... solutions.

This page is in French but see the links and documentation which are partially in english. Contact me if you have problem, French is my native language.

and another useful links:

 
Calculix is a good(free) FEA code which is run almost exclusively on Linux. It has a group on yahoo egroups.
 
"as A true linux user, I hate paying for stuff"

Hmmmm....as another "true Linux user", I'm not sure if sure if that statement is a good characterization of me.

While the free and open source stuff is a great benefit for exposing yourself to a variety of tools that you use to learn new things, when it comes time to working in a professional environment, technical support and commercial software also has clear benefits.

Case in point, my home machine has a Debian based installation. I bought a hard drive to install it on and paid $15 for a Linuxant modem driver. In total, I paid about what I would have paid to upgrade to WinXP. What I got was a lot of tools like Maxima, Octave, Python, QCAD, Xfig, Open Office, GnuCash, etc. that I use for my day to day at-home stuff. It's a darned good deal for non-critical use.

However, if I were building a Linux workstation, I'd probably go with SuSE and a support contract. For software, I'd replace QCAD with VariCAD, continue to use Open Office but also purchase Crossover Office, Maybe install NASTRAN, and so on.

The great thing about Linux is that you can get it and a boatload of software for free if you just want to "dink around with it". However, for a professional environment, the support is well worth paying for. That's not to say I don't use open source software in my work (I use Octave regularly), but I would never use an OS without available enterprise level technical support.

--
Joseph K. Mooney
Director, Airframe Structures - FAA DER
Delta Engineering Corporation
 
joekm, i agree totally with you. In my work environment we use both unix based machines and win based machines (depending on the departments). In my case I use both, and the advantage in linux is that I am able to migrate easily using some good tools between the two machines) often however i have had a better and more acurate response from technical support of linux software than win software.
For FEA i still use Ansys and Fluent for CFD in a WIN environment, it's just a matter of habit!
 
Hi everybody,
I am trying to endorse linux fea analisys in order to avoid all restrictions related to copyrights.
I have visited following internet sites (both pre-post processors and solvers) and I am evaluating related software ... could anyone tell me more details about programs ?
I must be sincere ... I am new with Linux!
Thank You in advance
 
Hy, .... (emmort!)

I have visited the CODE_ASTER website and I was very impressioned ... I am trying to translate each page but I have some problem to understand a couple of things ...

First of all, it's possible to import external CAD drawing into Aster? ... For example, file format as ACIS, STEP, IGES ... and so on ... can be easily treated by pre processor capabilities of CODE ASTER?

Do You think the software can be used just as numerical solver? ... It's my intention to endorse Salome platform as pre / post processor ... and I am looking for solver!!!

Thank You for You cooperation
 
Code_Aster is an huge code but only a finite element code.

It cannot understand "CAD", only mesh for some formats:
- its own mesh format (called .mail)
- mesh from Cast3M/Gibi software (a software from CEA, France)
- mesh from I-DEAS
- mesh from GMSH (free CAD/mesh on - mesh in MED format

Of course, you can develop an converter from another mesh format to mesh.

Aster may been endorsed in Salome platform in few months. Of course, Salome and Code_ASter are GPL softwares. Note that Aster can read natively Salome exchange standard for meshes named "MED".

There is a forum on the website, don't hesitate to use it.
 
Thank You "cassebrik" ... I appreciate Your answer a lot ...I'm gonna visiting suggested forum ... I am sure it will help me ...
Let me just summarise flow for a linux 3D fem project:
1- create a CAD 3D model
2- import into salome and mesh it
3- solve it by using code-aster
4- post process results by using salome again

... sure it won't be so simple but do You think it can be a linux solution for FEM analysis?
Regards
Ottinger
 
Good news !

J. Cugnoni (EPFL, Switzerland), an user of Code_Aster has just made a "live CD" for Linux/Code_Aster.

Simply download ISO file, burn it on a CD and try !

Everything you need to run Code_aster is on CD.

You need only a PC with CD-ROM drive (no installation of Linux is required).

Sure, it's a true linux solution for FEM analysis.

It's a professional FE code, used for very important numerical simulation in nuclear industry (linear and non-linear thermo-mechanics, soils and civil engineering simulation and so on).
It's a research sowtware too.
The software gets the quality certification (ISO 9001) and the special qualification for nuclear safety engineering.
More than 1500 tests exist and run every week on two platforms (Linux/Debian 32 bits and Compaq/Dec AlphaServer True64 bits)
But it works on a lot of Linux machine: Debian, Mandrake, Fedora, Rocks (cluster), Ubuntu
Some people has compiled it on Windows (with Visual C++/Fortran and with cygwin).

We're searching non-french (!) users to develop the community around this software (always in open source).
We need you !
It's only 1.000.000 Fortran/C lines and Python.
 
Is it true?!!? ... Woh!!!!
I am going to burn ISO CD and test software asap ...
At this moment I am installing Fedora Core 3 ... that should be OK ...

I come from Italy and I am interested in software community You mentioned ...
Thank You for Your help ...
hear You soon ...

Regards
Ottinger
 
FYI: ansys 8.1 was also already ported to linux.

Furthermore, I would also like to thank cassebrik for the great link.

 
... Hi everybody ...
last news from Salome forum say that Mr. Cugnoni was able to create a complete CAE Linux distro ... I am going to download the live DVD and test it ...
the link is
Bye
Ottinger
 
Hi,

The documentation base of Aster is huge, if you can be specific we can translate some info into English. We have a running version of Aster and Salome, downloaded quite some docs on usage, reference, validation, etc


YouriA
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top